


There's so much blood.

by Lady_Romana



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005), Doctor Who (Big Finish Audio), Doctor Who: Eighth Doctor Adventures - Various Authors
Genre: Other, doctor who - Freeform, idek, inside the vault, macqueen master - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-07
Updated: 2017-07-07
Packaged: 2018-11-29 03:07:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11431878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Romana/pseuds/Lady_Romana
Summary: While inside the vault, the Doctor and Missy reflect on one of their past encounters. While he ponders on the genuineness of her slow change of hearts, she ponders on the genuineness of the nobility of his.  A very small one shot prompted to me on tumblr using the title phrase.





	There's so much blood.

“ _There’s so much blood_ ” Missy said softly, barely above the buzz of the heater laying by the floor. She sat with her feet up, as she always did. As if she didn’t have a care in the world. As if all her life she’d lived inside the vault. — Hello again walls one two three and four, hope you’re having a great day!  _I’m_  stuck here for day ‘I’ve lost count’ point forty-three!

* * *

 

The Doctor sat opposite to her, his elbows on his knees and his frown curled up in deep thought. He stared at her intently, as he always did whenever he kept her company. As if he had been doing this all his lives. Watch her, wait. When she spoke,he sat up straighter and looked up at her, his frown deepening in surprise.

She was staring into nothingness, and nothingness was drawn on her face. Not a smirk, not a tear. Not even a glint. Nothing. Unreadable. He didn’t like unreadable. Unreadable was trouble. Unreadable was unpredictable. Unreadable was his kind’s amber alert. Yet unreadable was who she was, and it was the way it had to be with her. He knew to remain always sceptical around her, always in tiptoes.

“I never saw it before” she added to his silence, “didn’t have to”. Her tone of voice carried a calm unlike her. Unnerving not in the way it had been before, where she discussed her kills as merrily and easily as she discussed biscuits, but hollow. As if there should be something else to it, anything, and couldn’t bring herself to feel it. He knew her well enough to imagine that was what it was. That she was still  _looking_.

“And you do now?” he asked her, not quite sure of what to make of it. Not sure what to make of her.

She turned him, her chin held high up, and gave a soft nod. “I do.  _Can I get a big hurrah?_ ”  

_ “There’s so much blood” said the Doctor, aghast. He stared at his surroundings in horror, even though not a droplet was on sight. Not a puddle, not a body. Only an empty street, in an empty crumbled city. A city he was certain had once been beautiful. A city where it rained rubies, a city that glimmered red under its orange sun.  He could almost see it in all its splendour, a splendour from so long ago. It was now mere ruins, a faint echo of all it had once been. _

_ And there was, of course, only one person responsible. He had known it as soon as he heard the name - obvious, terrible name - as soon as he heard the story. It was always the same. Conflict of interests, and  him, an advisor only too thrilled to let it escalate. Escalate into destruction, so he could be left the only one standing.  And so he stood  a few steps away, in his suit and tie, wearing an ever so wicked grin. _

_ “Oh no no no no no, Doctor” said the Master, grinning wider. “Don’t look so sickly! I’m not a messy eater, you know. I gave them clean little bombs to off themselves without making a mess. Sure, the place will need some dusting … but all in time, all in time”, he strolled proudly towards the Doctor, until he was close enough to dust off the lapels of his jacket. _

_ “If I may be honest, I much prefer the tiny one with the umbrella. I was hoping he’d show up” he continued, smugly. _

_ “And I much preferred you when you were pretending to be me, at least then you did some good” the Doctor flinched away. _

_ The Master chuckled, and dusted off his own suit. “Oh, no thank you! Other than the whole playing you like a fiddle part, it was just no fun ” _

_ “And this is fun to you? Wrecking a city? Murdering most, if not all of its people?” he paused, narrowing his eyes in disgust. “Only you would call the chaos and decay you insist on spreading on your path fun. I wish I could say I’m surprised” _

_ “Why Doctor, the fun’s only just begun! The fact that you’re asking! I’m rather hurt. All these years I’ve been telling you the same thing, and you’ve never bothered to listen. What a friend you make” he said cynically, a mocking pout on his face. _

_ “Don’t tell me, you’re planning to take over an empty city” the Doctor retorted, every muscle on his face growing more and more tense at each word the Master said. “Is that your brilliant plan? Crowning yourself king when there’s nobody left to oppose you?” _

_ “So close! So close yet so cold! A few centuries ago, I might have done just that. Now I’m taking some leisure time, playing around you might say. And I spy with my little eye, something a lot more valuable than a mob with a mentality to run…” he once again stepped close, his eyes glimmering. Glimmering in anticipation, how he couldn’t wait for the penny to drop!  _

_ The Doctor looked around him, letting out a huff. Just what had this manic done? All he saw was ruins, destruction. And it dawned on him. It would be unlike the Master to take over such a small colony, one so primitive still, glinting and precious as it was. Far too small for his deluded ambitions. But glinting and precious it was, and it must have come with a great corporate price somewhere in the future. With no large ammounts of people inhabiting it, he could soon exploit it to his hearts’ content, and then continue to exploit everybody else in this system, and this galaxy, and so forth. _

_ “Money?” he asked, horrified. “Now you kill for money?”. _

_ “Not money Doctor, power. About time it came with a price tag. Bit expensive, I admit, but fortunately I can afford it. Like I said, I’m taking a leisure time from politics. All the strategizing and taking over through political schemes, fun as it was, is a little outdated. We’ve got to get with the times! What’s the song … we are living in a material world and I am a material girl. Money money money, always sunny, in the rich men’s world” _

_ “So much blood for rubies? Couldn’t you start building this little empire of yours before anyone arrived? Why? Why did you have to…?” the Doctor breathed harder and harder, enraged. He couldn’t even bring himself to try and talk any sense. It’d be pointless, wouldn’t it? _

_“Why?I need workers, Doctor! And you just said so yourself, there’s_ so  _much blood. War leaves the desperate behind and … well, you’re right. I just do love a crown, but it’s so, so much more satisfying when I get a big hurrah!”_

And he saw them. Her eyes glimmering, lost in the memory they shared. He saw them even as she still held her chin high, and drifted from his gaze.  He found his stomach twisting. It wasn’t delight they glimmered in, but sorrow. It was hard to imagine the sorrow she felt was for anyone but herself, how ghastly  _her_  actions, how nasty  _her_  words. And it wasn’t. She was very well aware it wasn’t.

All the while, she couldn’t think of a single face, of a single dead, not even the name of the planet. Just the red. The ever glowing red. The satisfaction of knowing it had all once been hers. Of knowing that she,  _he_  had brought it to its knees, and no one had ever known a thing. How cruel it’d been, how deliciously clever. And yet, her eyes were crystallized with tears.  How cruel, how deliciously clever, and how  **little** it lasted.  How worthless it’d been, how fleeting.

Unlike him, she thought. Unlike the Doctor. Who still stood here, with a crinkled face just every bit as selfish as hers. Because for her, it was hard to imagine the sorrow he felt was, too, for anyone but himself. How noble  _his_  actions, how kind  _his_  words. Both knew that was just how it was. Good and bad, manic and kind. For Time Lords, it was all about one.

“Well done, hurrah,” he said, sounding anything  _but_ cheery. Sarcastic was more like it, topped with a stern glance.  _Not good enough_. She saw through it and leaned closer, tilting her head to the side and giving him a cheeky grin.

“Thank you. Class dismissed? time for graduation? Am I finally done with goodie one-oh-one?” she asked in a high pitched tone. Half joke, half despair.

“Ah, but that wasn’t the big hurrah just yet” he said, standing up dismissively.

“You haven’t earned the congratulatory pat in the back. Not from me” he added, giving her  _the_ glance. She’d come to know the glance. The ‘I’m very cross, but I can’t stay cross much longer’ glance. She’d hated it at first, but each day she found the ‘I’m very cross’ was beginning to lose weight to the ‘I can’t stay cross much longer’.  She widened her grin, flung her arm up and  _pat pat_ , self-congatulatory.

“All in time, Missy. All in time” And with that he left, his footsteps and the countless locks of the vault’s door becoming the only noise in the newly reigning silence. A silence she’d never quite learned to enjoy before she was forced to listen to it. With a sigh she laid back on her chair, and the locks closed at last. Mind you, he was a little less mindful about them than the day before. Not that you’d catch him admitting that.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello all! That was my first time writing the Doctors so I hope I did them justice! Thank you for taking the time to read, please share your thoughts and feel free to request more stories!


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